Estradiol / Levonorgestrel News

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 28, 2016 – Women who use hormonal methods for birth control, such as "the pill," may have a slightly higher risk of developing depression – and teenagers may be most vulnerable, a large study suggests. Researchers said the findings confirm the link between hormonal birth control and depression symptoms. However, the association does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Manufacturers already list "mood changes," including new or worsening depression, on their products' list of potential side effects. But this new study of more than 1 million women strengthens the evidence of a connection, said Dr. Ojvind Lidegaard, of the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark. Lidegaard said women with a history of depression symptoms might want to consider nonhormonal contraception – such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) that release copper to prevent sperm from fertilizing the ... Read more

MONDAY, Feb. 22, 2016 – Women who've battled or survived an estrogen-dependent form of breast cancer often encounter vaginal symptoms linked to their treatment, especially around the time of menopause. Now, new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) advise that the use of symptom-relieving estrogen therapy is warranted for these patients. "These new recommendations are especially important and helpful because they provide the patient with the information needed to make an informed decision with the input of her health care provider," Dr. Diana Nancy Contreras, chair of ACOG's Subcommittee on Gynecologic Oncology, said in a college news release. One expert in women's health explained that patients with an estrogen-dependent breast cancer often suffer vaginal symptoms linked to treatment. "Many estrogen-dependent breast cancer treatments may bring ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 30, 2015 – Women who start hormone therapy toward the beginning of menopause may have a lower risk of developing heart disease, new research suggests. The study, of over 74,000 Swedish women, found that those who started hormone therapy within five years of beginning menopause typically stayed free of heart disease for a longer time than non-users. In contrast, women who started hormone therapy later showed an increase in their heart disease risk. "This is in line with what a number of studies have shown," said Dr. Sonia Tolani, of the Women's Center for Cardiovascular Health at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, in New York City. "There does seem to be a relationship between the timing of hormone therapy and heart disease risk," said Tolani, who was not involved in the study. However, she stressed, that doesn't mean women should routinely use hormones when menopause ... Read more

TUESDAY, June 30, 2015 – Women's faces are redder than usual during ovulation, but this subtle change isn't detectable to the human eye, new research shows. This change may be a possible signal of peak fertility, and it may have evolved to become less noticeable since controlling or hiding ovulation has greater benefits, the researchers suggested. In primates, males only express interest in females when it's apparent they're ovulating. Among humans, however, ovulation is not obvious and sex is not limited to the period of time when women are ovulating. Researchers investigated changes in the color of women's faces over the course of a month. The study involved 22 women. They were photographed daily without makeup using a scientific camera able to capture color more accurately than a typical camera. "We were able to recruit undergraduates in a number of colleges and photograph the women ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 – Women taking menopausal hormone therapy to relieve symptoms such as hot flashes often hope it will also help their menopause-related memory and thinking problems, but a new study reports it won't. However, oral hormone therapy was linked to mood benefits, the research found. "Hormone therapy is not a panacea, as it was once portrayed to be," said study researcher Carey Gleason, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "On the other hand, it is not a poison." Previously, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Memory Study ''suggested that hormone therapy was associated with cognitive harm for women age 65 and older," Gleason said. That study also found increased risk of heart attack, strokes and blood clots in postmenopausal women, according to the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Today, ... Read more

TUESDAY, June 2, 2015 – Physical activity may reduce a woman's risk of lung or breast cancer, a pair of new studies suggest. Women seem less likely to either develop or die from lung cancer if they engage in physical activity, and the benefits increase the more a woman stays on the move, Stanford University researchers found. "We saw that as levels of physical activity increase, risk of lung cancer decreased," said lead author Ange Wang, a medical student at Stanford. Even active smokers enjoyed some protective benefit from lung cancer, when compared with couch potatoes who smoked, the researchers said. Meanwhile, a French study found that women may reduce by as much as one-third their risk of developing breast cancer by engaging in vigorous physical exercise. But that benefit did not extend to those who had ever taken hormone replacement therapy. Both studies were presented Monday at ... Read more

MONDAY, May 18, 2015 – Hormone replacement therapy to relieve menopausal symptoms may raise the risk a bit for serious lower intestinal bleeding, a new study suggests. In the 1990s, millions of American women turned to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help ease the symptoms of menopause. But the results of a landmark study called the Women's Health Initiative, released in 2002, found that long-term use of the therapy increased women's risk for breast cancer, as well as their risk for heart attacks and strokes. Use of the regimen fell dramatically soon after. Now researchers say HRT's propensity for clotting, linked to heart attacks and strokes, may also lead to bleeding in the lower intestine. "HRT is an effective treatment, but it does come with risks," said lead researcher Dr. Prashant Singh of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Singh said the risk of any one woman ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, May 6, 2015 – Stroke is the third leading cause of death in women, but many are unaware of warning signs and symptoms that are unique to females, a new study says. Of 1,000 women surveyed, only one in 10 was aware that hiccups that occur with unusual chest pain is an early warning sign of stroke in women, said researchers from Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, in Columbus. Although men and women share some risk factors for stroke – such as smoking, being sedentary and having high blood pressure – others are specific to women, the researchers explained. But only 11 percent of women polled knew that pregnancy, lupus, migraine headaches, birth-control pills and hormone replacement therapy increase their stroke risk, the study found. "I think we have a ways to go when it comes to educating women about stroke and their unique risk factors," Dr. Diana Greene-Chandos, ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, March 11, 2015 – While some may worry about the long-term health effects of hormonal therapy on transgender people, a new study finds no higher risk of breast cancer in this group than in the general population. Reporting in the journal LGBT Health, the analysis of U.S. veterans' medical records from 1998 to 2013 identified 10 cases of breast cancer in transgender people, according to study author Dr. George Brown, of Mountain Home VA Medical Center in Johnson City, Tenn. The breast cancers tended to be more advanced in people who were born as male and transitioned to female, compared to those who were born female and transitioned to male. Overall, however, transgender people appear to be at no higher odds for developing breast cancer. Speaking in a journal news release, Brown said that when groups of transgender and transsexual people are tracked over time, this has "not ... Read more

TUESDAY, March 10, 2015 – There's yet another study looking at the potential dangers of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal symptoms, and this one supports the notion that the treatment may not help women's hearts. The research, a review of collected data on the issue, found that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not protect most postmenopausal women against heart disease and may even increase their risk of stroke. Also, the findings suggest that the harms and benefits of hormone therapy may vary depending on woman's age when she started the therapy, explained study lead author Dr. Henry Boardman, of the cardiovascular medicine department at the University of Oxford in England. "This 'Timing Hypothesis' may be the critical key to the use of HRT," agreed one expert, Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of women and heart disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "For ... Read more

FRIDAY, March 6, 2015 – Hormone replacement therapy for women may not be as potentially risky as previously thought, a new Mayo Clinic review contends. The new study, which evaluated three decades of prior research, concluded that hormone therapy to treat symptoms of menopause doesn't increase overall risk of death or the risk of death from heart attack, stroke or cancer. "This is the latest update of the current evidence," said lead author Dr. Khalid Benkhadra, a research fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "I can say there's no risk of dying from any reason because a woman is taking hormone replacement therapy." The results, Benkhadra said, should allay concerns of some women with debilitating menopausal symptoms who have feared taking hormones. But not everyone is sold on the safety of hormone therapy. Heart and cancer doctors who reviewed the new findings said that ... Read more

FRIDAY, March 29 – Women who take hormone therapy that includes estrogen and progestin are at increased risk of developing breast cancer and dying from it, especially if they start taking the therapy just as menopause begins, a new analysis confirms. Researchers followed nearly 42,000 women, all of whom were past menopause, for an average of more than 11 years. Of those, more than 25,000 did not use hormone therapy and more than 16,000 took estrogen and progestin, also called combined hormone therapy. For this analysis, the researchers did not include estrogen-only therapy, used by women who have had a hysterectomy. At the end of the follow-up period, more than 2,200 of the women were found to have breast cancer. Compared to non-users, those who took combined therapy were more likely to have breast cancer, said Dr. Rowan Chlebowski, a medical oncologist at the Los Angeles Biomedical ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 24 – It is said that timing is everything. When it comes to taking hormone replacement therapy, that may indeed be true. A new study has found that taking hormone replacement therapy within five years of menopause may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by 30 percent compared to women who have not used hormone therapy. The researchers set out to better understand why some previous studies had shown hormones were effective in reducing Alzheimer's risk while others had not. The Women's Health Initiative Memory Study, a large, multicenter trial, was stopped prematurely in 2002 due to concerns that the hormones might be raising the risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia. "The Women's Health study put a cloud over doing further research," said Peter Zandi, author of the latest study and an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 24 – Is hormone replacement therapy safe or not? It has taken a decade of research to arrive at a conclusion that is far from definitive: The evidence suggests it may help in the short term to manage hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause in some younger, healthy women. But, taking it for long periods of time or later in menopause to help prevent certain chronic diseases isn't recommended. On Monday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force once again backed the idea that long-term use later in menopause is unwise when it released recommendations that said the increased health risks outweighed the benefits of using the treatment in that medical scenario. That was not always the prevailing view in the medical community, however. For years, it was common for women suffering from hot flashes, night sweats and other life-disrupting symptoms of menopause to go on hormone ... Read more

THURSDAY, Dec. 9 – In a finding that seems to counter the prevailing wisdom that any form of hormone replacement therapy raises the risk of breast cancer, a new look at some old data suggests that estrogen-only hormone therapy might protect a small subset of postmenopausal women against the disease. "Exogenous estrogen [such as hormone therapy] is actually protective" in women who have a low risk for developing breast tumors, said study author Dr. Joseph Ragaz, a medical oncologist and clinical professor in the School of Population & Public Health at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. With his colleagues, Ragaz took another look at data from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study, a national trial that has focused on ways to prevent breast and colorectal cancer, as well as heart disease and fracture risk, in postmenopausal women. The team planned to present its ... Read more